Antiamnesic Activity of an Ayurvedic Formulation Chyawanprash in Mice

Chyawanprash (Chy) is an ayurvedic formulation commonly consumed in Indian households. Chy is a comprehensive herbal tonic, prepared from around 50 herbs employing anwala (Emblica officinalis) as the basic ingredient. The present study was undertaken to explore the beneficial effects of Chy (at the dose of 1 and 2% w/w of diet) administered daily for 15 successive days in mice with memory deficits. A total of 228 mice divided in 38 groups were employed in this study. Morris water maze, Hebb-Williams maze and elevated plus maze served as exteroceptive memory models, whereas scopolamine (Sco)-induced amnesia and alprazolam (Alp)-induced amnesia served as interoceptive memory models. The brain acetylcholinesterase activity, brain thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) and reduced glutathione levels (GSH) were also estimated. The administration of Chy for 15 consecutive days significantly protected the animals from developing memory impairment. Furthermore, there was a significant decrease in brain TBARS and increase in GSH levels after administration of Chy (2% w/w), thereby indicating decreased free radical generation and increased scavenging of free radical, respectively. Thus, Chy may prove to be a useful remedy for the management of Alzheimer's disease owing to its antioxidant effect, pro-cholinergic action and/or antiamnesic potential

Dementia: An Overview

Dementia is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by progressive and continuous loss of cognitive functions. The neuropsychiatric symptoms include apathy; agitation and depression. As the disorder progresses, the patient gradually becomes dependent on others to perform routine daily activities. Various underlying diseases or disorders are the root cause of the syndrome of dementia. Each of these disorder or disease is characterized by a specific signs and symptoms in combination with a presumed underlying neuropathology. Alzheimer’s disease is the most prevalent cause of dementia. The second most prevalent cause is vascular dementia. In this review, the clinical types, pathophysiology and pharmacotherapy is summarized

An Analysis of Various Dimensions of ATM Banking Service Quality

Now a day banking institutions have adopted Self Service Technologies to provide financial and non-financial services to its customers regressively. Automated Teller Machine (ATM) is one of the means to provide Self Service banking. The purpose of this research paper is to analyze the various dimensions of ATM service quality on the basis of studies conducted in different part of the world and to analyze the relationship of ATMs service quality with the customer satisfaction. After in depth literature review of 8 studies, it has been observed that there is no consensus of various researchers on multiple dimensions of automated teller machine banking service quality and there is a positive relationship among various dimensions of ATM service quality and customer satisfaction. As a result this paper recommends that further research is required to develop a generally accepted scale to measure ATM banking service quality on various standardized dimensions

Ellagic Acid Administration Reverses Colchicine- Induced Dementia in Rats

The late-onset sporadic type of Alzheimer’s disease is characterised by chronic oxidative stress, neuroinflammation and cognitive dysfunction. Ellagic acid is a naturally occurring polyphenol known to possess robust antioxidant property. In the present study, memory enhancing potential of ellagic acid has been explored against ICV colchicine induced dementia in rats. Colchicine (15μg/rat) was administered to Wistar rats (200g) through intracerebroventricular (ICV) route by using stereotaxic apparatus. ICV colchicine induces Alzheimer’s disease like changes in the brain such as rampant free radical production, neuroinflammation and selective neurodegeneration in hippocampus and cortex by acting as an antitubulin agent (mitotic poison). Ellagic acid (17.5 and 35 mg/kg, p.o.) was administered to rats for 25 successive days. Morris water maze and elevated plus maze paradigms were utilized to assess the spatial memory of rats. Oxidative stress biomarkers along with TNF-α were also measured in brain of rats. Ellagic acid prevented the ICV colchicine triggered cognitive deficits as evident by a significant (p<0.05) reduction in mean escape latency during acquisition trial and increased (p<0.05) time spent in target quadrant during probe trial in Morris water maze test, and reduction (p<0.05) in transfer latency in elevated plus maze test. Furthermore, both the doses of ellagic acid attenuated ICV colchicine induced rise in brain TBARS as well as TNF-α and simultaneously enhanced the GSH content.Ellagic acid prevented the brain of rodents from dementing effects of colchicine by attenuating the oxidative damage

Serum Beta HCG and uterine artery Doppler studies in second trimester to predict preeclampsia and eclampsia

Background: Hypertensive disorders during pregnancy remain amongst the most significant and intriguing unsolved problems in obstetrics. The study aims at testing the hypothesis that women with high serum beta hCG levels and alterations in waveforms in the uterine artery doppler in early second trimester have high risk of developing pre-eclampsia.Methods: Serum Beta hCG estimation was done by Sandwich chemiluminescence immunoassay method. All uterine artery waveforms were obtained using a Toshiba nemio ultrasound machine attached to a 3.5 MHz curvilinear transducer, with colour and pulsed Doppler abilities.Results: For prediction of preeclampsia or eclampsia uterine artery Doppler velocimetry alone shows specificity of 96.30%, sensitivity of 90%, positive predictive value of 94% and negative predictive value of 80%. When it is combined with serum beta HCG sensitivity and specificity are almost same, but alone serum beta HCG levels are showing sensitivity of 96% and specificity of just 76%.Conclusions: Abnormal waveforms on uterine Doppler studies are the better predictors for preeclampsia and eclampsia when done in early second trimester

Giant vesical calculus

Author presented a case report of a 42-year-old male patient who presented with dysuria, heaviness in lower abdomen since last 3 years associated with pain over bilateral lumber region since 2 years. He had history of recurrent urinary tract infection for last 6 months with blood in urine occasionally. Routine urine examination detected red and white blood cells with culture growth of E. coli. Ultrasound of abdomen confirmed the presence of vesical calculus of 10x7x5 cm

Anxiolytic activity of Angiotensin-Receptor-Blocker in Experimental Models of Anxiety in Mice

The present study aimed to explore the role of Angiotensin- Receptor-Blocker in the management of anxiety. Male Swiss albino mice of age 6-8 weeks and weight 25-30 g were used in the present study. Candesartan (Angiotensin receptor blocker) was administered in two doses (1 and 2 mg/kg; i.p.) to mice for 14 successive days regularly. Anxiety was induced in mice by two different methods: (i) exposing the mice to immobilization stress for a period of 6 h daily for 7 consecutive days; (ii) administration of caffeine (25 mg/kg; i.p.) daily for 7 days. Elevated Zero Maze and Open Field Apparatus were used to evaluate the level of anxiety in different groups. After behavioral evaluation, the animals were sacrificed and their brains were used for estimation TBARS, GSH and Nitrite levels in the brain. Administration of Candesartan (1 and 2 mg/kg; i.p) for 14 successive days significantly (p<0.05) reduced anxiety due to immobilization stress and caffeine induced anxiety. Candesartan (1and 2 mg/kg; i.p) treated mice showed an increase (p<0.05) in GSH levels while a decrease (p<0.05) in TBARS and nitrite levels in brain. Thus, candesartan may prove to be a useful remedy for the management of anxiety owing to its neuroprotective and antioxidant activity

Can We Gain More from Orthogonality Regularizations in Training Deep Networks?

1This work seeks to answer the question: as the (near-) orthogonality of weights is found to be a favorable property for training deep convolutional neural networks, how we can enforce it in more effective and easy-to-use ways? Through this work we look to come up with novel orthogonality regularizations for training deep CNNs, utilizing various advanced analytical tools such as mutual coherence and Restricted Isometric Property. These plug-and-play regularizations can be conveniently incorporated into training almost any CNN without extra hassle. We then benchmark their effects on three state-of-the-art models: ResNet, WideResNet, and ResNeXt, on CIFAR-10 and CIFAR-100 and SVHN datasets. To validate method’s efficacy across various distribution and dataset, we apply the best performing regularizer(SRIP), for different setting of WideResNet to ImageNet Dataset. We observe consistent performance gains after applying those proposed regularizations, in terms of both the final accuracies achieved, and accelerated and more stable convergences. 1Reprinted with permission from Abstract section of Can We Gain More from Orthogonality Regularizations in Training Deep Networks? by N. Bansal, X. Chen and Z. Wang, 2018,Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 31 (NIPS 2018) pre-proceeding